Duel of the Fates
by Torankusu
Summary: The last warrior to stand for Vegetasei, Bardock's father. The tyrant and destroyer of worlds, Freeza. A duel for the fate of a race.


**Duel of the Fates**  
a Dragon Ball Fanfic  
by Torankusu Senshi  
  
Bardock trembled on the stairwell, breathing heavily. He was a mess, even for a saiyajin. Blood spilled down his sides, and the only thing that kept him moving was the sheer force of his own will. He leaned against the side of the chamber hard, still rocked with the events of the past few hours. And then, another one hit him, as violent and confusing as the ones before it.  
  
_A young man dressed in an orange and blue gi stood tall, his back facing Bardock. The scenery before his eyes was unfamiliar to him, with sporadic, single trees dotting a green island landscape. The figure before him turned to look at him_, _eyes seeming to bore into him, the expression a mirror of one he head worn many, many times himself. Painfully, Bardock reached a hand to the man before him, his son.....  
  
"Kakarotto......"  
  
Then, the ground beneath him exploded in fiery brilliance, the sheer force of it casting him away from his son. The only one that meant anything to him, anymore.  
  
"Kakarotto!"  
  
_Bardock's eyes forced themselves open. He found himself crouched low to the floor, his body shaking with the experience. Damned visions. If only he hadn't been so careless on Kanaseii, he'd be free to deal with this, already a large problem, without these hallucinations. They had almost cost him his life back there, on Meatsei, when he battled the assasins that had murdered his team.  
  
His team. Toma, Totepo, Celipa, and Panboukin. All dead.   
  
And all because of that monster Freeza. They, the saiyajin, had worked so hard for Freeza, for years on end, had carried out his wishes. They rarely, if ever, failed at any job, and if they came close, their ability to transform into Oozaru had made them the perfect species for the planet trade. So why, all of a sudden, had Freeza decided that the saiyajin had become an eyesore? Why had he chosen to eliminate them?   
  
Toma had died in his arms.   
  
The saiyajin on Vegetasei hadn't believed him when he had told him of their fate. They had laughed at him, calling him a joke. If nothing else, just the simple thought that his race was about to be lambs to the slaughter, to an overlord they had trusted, drove Bardock into a berserker fury. He knew that, if his team had been killed, so had all the other teams, on different planets. The other saiyajin would never believe him, at least not in time to make a difference. They were doomed.  
  
Bardock swallowed the bad taste in his mouth, only partially his own blood, and continued running up the spiral staircase.  
  
----------------------------------------------------------------  
  
The saucer shaped spaceship was closing in on Vegetasei quickly. Little did the millions of saiyajin below know that, at the height of their carnage filled lives, they would be cut down as simply as the races they had destroyed, themselves. They had committed genocide on a mass scale, entire races and planets had fallen before their might. Live by the sword, Die by the sword, indeed. Some would call this ironic, others would dub it poetic justice.  
  
Freeza thought it great fun.  
  
-----------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Bardock stood at the top of the balcony, having finished ascending the staircase. As his horrified eyes watched, the saucer was slowly coming into range of Vegetasei. The harbringer of doom for them all. He thought back to what had happened over the past few days, but mainly dwelled on Toma's words earlier. Freeza had betrayed them. And then he staggered, the force of another vision taking away what little strength he had.  
  
_Vegetasei. Covered in bright orange craters, glowing a brighter red than even it normally would have. For a moment, it resembled nothing more than a small star. Without warning, that small star suddenly expanded, the glow becoming a thousand times brighter. And then, there was no more Vegetasei.  
  
_Bardock gasped for air, turning his gaze back up on the vessel of death that was Freeza's ship. All his other visions, the ones of his team's death, had proved right so far. And Freeza surely had the power within him to destroy the planet that simply....  
  
And again, unbidden, came Toma's words to him. Toma had asked that Bardock show Freeza what saiyajins were really made of, that the galactic tyrant had chosen to fight a race that would destroy him. Those words reverberated through his mind. Sure, it had been a vision, Vegetasei's death, but did that mean he wouldn't try?  
  
He didn't even have to bother to answer that, not even to himself.  
  
"I will change.........."  
  
He glowed blue with the force of his own power, hidden reserves of strength he didn't even know existed coming to his aid.  
  
"The future!!"  
  
And with that, the saiyajin Bardock, last hope for his proud race, launched himself through the sky at the saucer ship.  
  
With the speed he had gained somehow, he broke atmosphere quickly, leaving behind a trail of blue flams in his wake. In moments, he was in the cold vastness of space, the saucer ship wasn't too far from him. Then descended the soldiers, literally hundreds of them from the ship's hatches, all rushing at him.  
  
And the distance to that ship seemed quite suddenly much, much farther.  
  
But Bardock was now no longer a simple man. He was the embodiment of the saiyajin spirit. Determination, fury, and the cold drive to eliminate his enemy were all his. No matter who was his enemy this moment, they had best take care of themselves. A saiyajin in the middle of a righteous fury was nothing to be taken lightly, regardless of his initial level of power.  
  
The soldiers met Bardock halfway. Still in that berserker determination, Bardock killed two of their numbers without even stopping his momentum. He cut through their ranks as if they were nothing at all. They fell on all sides to his offense, some backing away due to fear at the animal before them, somes imply being blasted back with that animal's power.  
  
However, despite the fact that none wanted to challenge Bardock, they wanted less to displease Freeza. So they ganged up on him in a joint effort to kep him from reaching the ship. Many times they did this, and time after time, the crazed saiyajin broke free of their holds and continued on, single minded, towards his destination.  
  
"Freeza! Come out!"  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Freeza lowered his arms. In a lower, more deadly voice than Zarbon had ever heard, as he watched the mere saiyajin trash tear through his elite troops like paper, he spoke.  
  
"Open the hatch, Zarbon."  
  
Zarbon stuttered a moment. He couldn't believe Freeza was actually going to heed the wishes of that monkey out there? Zarbon could take care of that little pest himself, if need be.  
  
"But, Freeza-sama...."  
  
Freeza clenched his fists. With that, Zarbon knew Freeza was very, very angry. Such displays of emotion were usally beyong the cold being.  
  
"Yes, Freeza-sama!"  
  
--------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
The hatch opened. And out came the bearer of doom, his lips compressed into a thin line. Bardock smiled at that, this was how we wanted it. The two of them stood across from each other. Neither the picture of good, but the saiyajin bearing much less evil. The battle now would decide the fate of the saiyajin. The soldiers who had latched onto Bardock let go, moving back and away from both of the warriors before them, as if the very void of space was shaking with the tension of it.  
  
The most enegy Bardock could manage, the dazzling blue orb came into being around his fist.  
  
"This changes everything............."  
  
The monster Freeza stared at Bardock with no readable expression.  
  
"The fate of planet Vegeta......."  
  
Freeza lifted a single index finger, vaguely pointed in Bardock's direction.  
  
"The fate of Kakarotto........."  
  
Bardock was trembling with his own power, grinning like the devil. A small orange speck of ki appeared in front of Freeza's index finger.  
  
"My fate..........."  
  
Bardock's whole body tensed as he threw in the last of his reserves into this attack. The glowing orange orb before Freeza grew to the size of the tyrant himself, but no larger.  
  
"And yours!!!"  
  
Bardock drew back his hand, and flung the energy with all his might at the bringer of all his pain.  
  
"THIS ENDS NOW!!!"  
  
Freeza actually chuckled, and the orange orb before him grew impossibly huge. The, by comparison, small energy attack Bardock had used was nothing compared to it. It hit the orange ball, and simply ceased to be.   
  
"What?!"  
  
Freeza, still chuckling that evil, self controlled cackle of his, gestured his index finger at Bardock. No, at _Vegetasei...._  
  
All the soldiers gathered could only scream in protest as their own apocalypse descended on them. Bardock was the first to be hit, his armor and skin peeling away like nothing at all before the awesome power of the attack. His eyes went blank, but...  
  
_Kakarotto, again in that orange and blue gi. Standing face to face with...Freeza?!  
  
Get revenge for all saiyajins, Kakarotto......  
  
_And somehow, the warrior managed a smile as the beam tore through him easier than anyone could have ever imagined.  
  
"My son lives on!"  
  
And the attack of Freeza's cut through Bardock, the elites of Freeza, and finally, into Vegetasei itself. The planet shuddered, and, as brilliant as a star going nova, exploded. Thus ended the lives of all the saiyajins, all but four. They passed into history, as forgotten as those they had killed.  
  
------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Freeza cackled maniacally, the colors of the explosion bathing him in an eerie light.   
  
"Zarbon-san, Dodoria-san, look a these wonderful fireworks!"   
  
Little did Freeza know just how much truth their was in Bardock's final words.  
  
---------------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Across the reaches of space, impossibly far away from the drama of betrayal and hope that had just been played out, slept a boy. He slept soundly in his space capsule. Headed straight towards a nowhere frontier planet called Chikyuu.  
  
_Get revenge for all saiyajins, Kakarotto....._


End file.
